Urchinomics
PITCHFEST 2020 Finalist
Website: www.urchinomics.com
Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Year Commenced: 2012
Ocean Theme: Ocean Health & Ocean Harvesting
Uncontrolled quantities of sea urchins overgraze kelp forests and seagrass meadows, turning once pristine and vibrant, carbon sequestering marine ecosystems into lifeless, barren deserts, or "Urchin barrens". Urchinomics is a restorative aquaculture venture that aims to turn this environmental challenge into a commercial, ecological and social opportunity. Due to a combination of overfishing of predatory species, climate change and pollution, sea urchin populations have exploded, causing catastrophic imbalances in coastal ecosystems around the world. Urchinomics target these sea urchins and re-home them into their proprietary aquaculture ranching systems where they are fed a natural, formulated feed for 5 to 10 weeks to produce high quality urchin roe (uni) ready for sale to high end restaurants around the world.
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Mission: “To help restore kelp forests by removing and ranching overgrazing sea urchins, converting them into premium urchin roe (uni) to sell to top tier restaurants and consumers globally.”
Solution: Uncontrolled numbers of sea urchins are known to deplete kelp forests resulting in areas known as ‘urchin barrens’. Urchinomics works with local divers to remove barren urchins and transport them to their land-based ranching systems. They then use their proprietary feed to fill the empty urchins with uni over the course of 5 to 10 weeks, depending on the species. Urchinomics then sells the ranched uni to high end restaurants and seafood distributors around the world.Urchinomics is a restorative aquaculture venture that provides an effective solution to a key environmental challenge and has in turn, created a unique commercial and social opportunity.
How does the ocean inspire you? “The ocean is the source of life and the reason life continues today. It's capable of unharnessed and endless power, control of global weather patterns, production of 50% of the world’s oxygen and absorption of 30% of human-generated CO2, and being the primary source of food for 3.5 billion people. Humans are not the masters of the planet – we are simply the custodians and we have not been fulfilling our responsibilities. I am inspired by the opportunity to help restore the marine environment with the work that I do on a daily basis.” - Harry Rappaport, Finance and Strategy.
